


Possibly Not In Chronological Order (or Five Times River Song Flirted With Danger)

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Once Upon a Time (TV), Sapphire and Steel, Spooks | MI-5, The Hour
Genre: 5 Times, Crossover, F/F, Trope Bingo Round 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 10:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River doesn’t know any ordinary people, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possibly Not In Chronological Order (or Five Times River Song Flirted With Danger)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the crossover square for Trope Bingo. I can't explain it, except I think someone somewhere on the internet said River Song/Lix Storm and then this happened. (Thank you, whoever you were.)
> 
> No spoilers for the crossover fandoms (to the very best of my knowledge). Whether they therefore all make sense is another matter.

**1\. Imaginary**

The library is a prison that offers up endless possibilities, and River’s always liked exploring – and escaping. This time, she tries fantasy.

*

“Great dress,” she says, as she’s dragged into the castle of the Evil Queen for incapacitating a guard or three. “I like your style.”

The Queen raises an eyebrow and then waves the guards away as she circles her latest guest. River doesn’t mind; it’s a better view of the outfit, and it is fabulous – purple and black, and tight-fitting. Maybe a bit over the top, but she fills it well. River notices these things.

River steps nearer still and gives the Queen a smile. They’re face to face now.

That causes her – Regina – to pause and frown. “Who are you? Who sent you?”

“No one,” says River, and then smiles again, politely. “That was the answer to both questions, in case you were wondering.”

Regina shrugs. “No matter,” she says. “You’ll tell me all I need to know – and then we’ll see.” She reaches out her hand towards River’s chest.

River catches it, guides to where her heart should be, and then smiles again, this time sadly. “Oh, sweetie, no. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Your heart –?”

“Elsewhere,” says River. “Taken already, I’m afraid. Darling, I never said I was _real_.” She’s near enough still to take advantage of the queen’s distraction to steal a kiss from her.

Regina glares, but refuses to be intimidated yet. “Then what are you? What did you come here for?”

“You,” says River.

Regina steps away, making a gesture with her hand as if she’s throwing something and seems alarmed when River doesn’t move. “Try anything else, and I’ll call for the guards.”

“Well, it wasn’t what I had in mind,” says River, “but I’m up for an orgy if you are.”

“How _dare_ you -?”

River laughs and puts out her hand to touch Regina’s face. “Didn’t you hear me? I said it was you I was after.” She’s sees the Queen’s instant flare of anger fade into a more human confusion, and then River kisses her again before vanishing.

River knows her fairy tales well and makes her plans accordingly: after all, it’s always the third time when things get interesting.

 

***

 

**2\. Friendly Fire**

She lives a life of adventure and exploration, unrepentant. Something like that, anyway, she tries to remind herself as she’s temporarily stuck in the dreary fag end of the Forties. She’s looking for someone who isn’t here after all, and so now she comes to rest in an insalubrious drinking establishment, where he definitely wouldn’t be, even if he was.

It’s full of men and smoke and the smell of stale alcohol. This damned backward century, she thinks with a brief sigh. Another fifty or hundred years and you’d at least have both sexes and varying shades of colour, another few hundred more and you wouldn’t be able to count the different species. Then, through the smoke haze, she sees her: she’s not the only female in here. There’s a dark-haired woman at the bar who seems to be drinking alone.

So, she strides across and sits beside her. “I’ll have what she’s having,” she says to the bartender and gives the woman a bright smile. “Hi.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” says the woman, turning her head. “The whisky here’s appalling.”

River leans on the bar. “Too late now,” she says. “Still, I like to live dangerously.”

“Overrated, darling,” says the woman. “Most of the time, anyway.”

River grins. “River Song,” she says, holding out her hand. She wonders who the other is, what she’s doing here, why the whisky. Too much, too fast, too young, or just that strain of trying to keep ahead in a man’s world? River knows about both in her own way.

“Lix Storm,” the woman says in return.

River takes the whisky as it’s passed to her. It is pretty dire, she acknowledges. Much like everything else round here, barring Lix. She says as much.

“Interminably dreary, I know,” Lix agrees. “I can’t think why I came. I’m sure there was a reason, but I forget.” She shrugs.

“I know a better place than this,” River tells her. “A few thousand better places, actually.”

“That wouldn’t be hard,” Lix points out. “After all, if they can’t even manage a decent whisky –”

River grins and leans in. “So, why don’t you come with me?”

“Where, exactly? Morocco?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe the places I know. I think I can find somewhere you’ll enjoy. I was getting bored round here by myself.”

“Why not?” says Lix. There are, of course, plenty of reasons why not; River knows that and Lix must do, too, but it seems they’re both ready to ignore that for the moment. Maybe it’s the whisky, maybe it’s just the shared need to seize the day – or the night, in this case. 

River gets up. “This way.”

“Something tells me,” says Lix, “I’m going to regret not having my camera.”

River shakes her head. “Sweetie, no time for regrets where we’re going…”

 

***

 

**3\. Walking Dead**

Sometimes she hates herself, hates all that she is, the things that she’s done, that she’s designed to do. It’s in one of those times she runs into Ros Myers.

Same old story, you know how it is: River’s trying to swipe the priceless Vessel of Arillia, which the people round here mistakenly think is a medieval chalice, a collector’s item and not the vicious alien weapon it actually is, and Ros is here for the corrupt businessman’s computer files. She doesn’t care about his art collection.

There’s a misunderstanding, which, on Ros’s part, involves few words and some brief but very effective violence. River enjoys it far too much. However, they’re both pragmatic. Ros isn’t here for a thief, so River gets the Vessel, Ros gets the data. River gets tailed home by some guy in a suit – and she gets a house call later, mostly because she hung around and waited for it. The house, of course, is borrowed for the occasion.

“Now,” says Ros, standing in the hallway, “who the hell are you?”

River smiles slowly. “Good question. Want to find out?”

“Look,” says Ros, “one thing I do know is that you’re a bloody useless thief. That artefact was stolen last week by somebody else. That’s a fake, and not even a good one. Now, care to explain?”

River turns the item over in her hands, and can’t help being amused. Of course, she thinks. He got there first. When she looks inside, there’s even a note in there, explaining everything – or what passes for an explanation with him.

“We’ve had the building under observation for weeks,” Ros says.

River tilts her head. “And you didn’t bother reporting the theft?”

“Well, it would have given the game away,” she says, wryly. “Besides, it’s not my job to provide security for a multi-millionaire who’s screwing the taxpayers and making side-deals with the Russians. If you ask me, he deserves everything he gets. You – now, you I don’t get.”

River sits down in the nearest chair. “Shouldn’t you be dragging me into your top secret headquarters if you want to interrogate me properly? I mean, there should be hand-cuffs and all that sort of thing.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively at the idea.

“You know how it is,” says Ros. “It tends to play merry hell with the top secret part.”

River smiles widely now. “No, this is unofficial, isn’t it? You’re curious.”

“I could just be here to kill you,” says Ros, entirely deadpan.

“Already dead, sweetie,” River tells her. “Trust me, it doesn’t seem to take.”

Ros gives a smile, then; some joke she’s not explaining. “I know the feeling.”

She’s dead, too, River realises, although she doesn’t know how or why, literally or metaphorically. She decides they might as well see what else they’ve got in common, and she lets Ros interrogate her all she likes. She’d say it was her just desserts, but she gets far too much of a kick out of the experience, so she thinks of it instead as a meeting of the damned.

 

***

 

**4\. Impossible**

River goes everywhere, of course. Right now, she’s wandering around in a part of time and space she’s absolutely forbidden to be in. It’s a line she hadn’t crossed before, so why not? And maybe because he really, truly can’t be here, although whether because she’s avoiding him, or because he usually winds up exactly where he’s not meant to be, she couldn’t say.

Ostensibly, she’s exploring some fascinating ruins on an empty planet, of course, and that’s where she runs into her, the woman she’s never met but knows very well by reputation. She couldn’t know _him_ if she hadn’t heard about her.

“You know,” says Romana, walking across to meet her, “I thought this planet had been abandoned several millennia ago.”

River’s surprised for once. She stands up slowly, and gives a brilliant smile. “Romana?”

Romana’s eyebrows shoot up. Then she gives a small, complacent smile, and says, “Well. You must be a friend of the Doctor’s. Dr River Song, I think?”

“How –?” 

“Well,” says Romana, “he always did think rules were there to be broken. There might have been a letter there never should have been.” She smiles. “Not that I read it, obviously.”

River tries not to laugh. “In that case, I have another message from him.”

“Oh, yes?” says Romana. “Do go on. I hope this one isn’t about taking K9 for walkies at least once a day again.”

“It’s not exactly something I can _say_ as such…”

Romana looks across at her. “Oh, how interesting. Let me guess – is it sign language?”

“Of a sort.” River leans over and kisses her cheek, but draws back only slowly.

Romana raises her eyebrows again. “Really? Because in my experience he usually has _much_ more to say for himself than that. He babbles, you know. It’s rare that more than a third of it even makes sense.”

“Well, yes,” says River. “I know. So, call it my personal interpretation.”

Romana puts a finger to her mouth. “Hmm. Still, the lost city of Ykess has been lying here undisturbed for six thousand years. I don’t suppose another few minutes will make too much difference.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” says River, and moves in nearer.

*

It’s unfortunate that they’re both wrong: two minutes earlier and they’d have arrived before the millions of hostile Jarrans burst out of the ruins rather than after…

Still, it’s true, River finds, the rest of what he told her: Romana is also magnificent at saving planets.

 

***

**5\. Outside**

Sometimes she thinks she is nothing more than an anomaly that ought to be fixed, even erased. Sometimes she’d like to be able to do that. And if you hang around the weirder corners of the universe, as she does, you learn there are possibilities. She’s heard stories.

As she faces the woman in front of her now, she’s looking at something he once said was nothing but a myth, but then again, he’d been even more cryptic than usual, so she always suspected there might be more to it than that.

“I’m all wrong,” says River. “I shouldn’t be here, not like this.”

Sapphire gives her a long, cool look. “Yes,” she says, after she’s finished surveying her.

“So?” River wonders about touching Sapphire, whether it would be safe. In a short time, she’s beginning to understand that the other woman is unlike anyone she’s ever met before, and, given her life story, that’s saying something.

Sapphire leans her head fractionally to one side, and then puts her hand to River’s arm, briefly but deliberately. “You’re unique, I think. A vessel of time.”

“So, you need to fix me,” says River. She’s good at hiding herself, but she feels sure she can’t this time. Her hands are shaking and she’s breathing more rapidly. She can hear it in her voice. “Put me right. Put me back in my proper time and place – or end the anomaly. Isn’t that what you do?”

Sapphire shrugs. “Something like that,” she says, but then she turns and walks away from River.

“Wait. You’re – you’re _leaving_?” River can’t understand it. If all that she has been told is true, then why isn’t Sapphire doing as she asks?

“You want me to stay?” Sapphire turns around. Her eyes glow blue. “There’s nothing I can do. You belong to no time or place you have ever been. Your past and future and present is woven into the fabric of the universe. To undo that would be to leave an irreparable tear. What needs to be done has already been done. Will be done. There is nothing else.”

River raises her head. “So, you’re going – that’s it?”

“Yes,” says Sapphire, sounding amused.

River, since she doesn’t have a rescue or an ending here, pushes her luck instead. She gives the other a grin and wink. “Well, then, if I’m so unique, don’t you want to explore me before you go? I think you do, at least a little bit.”

Sapphire hesitates. “Why?”

Oh yes, thinks River, she’s right: whatever the other woman is, she understands curiosity. She probably manages it better than River, but it’s there.

“Because something tells me you’re pretty much unique, too, and I can’t wait to get my hands on _you_.” River folds her arms. “Anyway, if you’re not going to give me a more thorough examination, you’d better tell me where I go to get a second opinion, because I’d definitely want one.”

Sapphire smiles, then, and relents. “I suppose it would do no harm to make certain,” she says, and reaches out her hand to touch River’s head. Then she faces her, serious again. “You did ask. Remember that.”

It’s a warning, River thinks, and she grins all the wider. “Oh, I know,” she says. “I know.”


End file.
